


Academy Days

by eschscholzia, onlymton



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Self-Insert, no grand galactic plots here, nostalgic silliness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eschscholzia/pseuds/eschscholzia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlymton/pseuds/onlymton
Summary: eschscholzia gifted me with a work for my birthday earlier this year, so here is my attempt to respond in kind for hers!Many, many years ago, we invented characters for the TNG universe. eschscholzia created detailed, clever bios for these (gratuitous self-insert) characters along with many more; in my mind, I can still see the dot matrix printouts. :)I couldn't resist a few drabbles about these characters' early friendship. Memory fails how much of this is based in shared canon between the two of us and how much I made up. I hope eschscholzia will forgive any unintended errors along with any AO3 faux paus as I'm a relative novice to posting here. I've also left this unfinished, just in case either of us is inspired to add more at some point.Happy birthday to my oldest friend!





	1. Plotting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eschscholzia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eschscholzia/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The characters are based on eschscholzia's creations; the writing (and whatever mistakes are in there!) for these first few chapters is mine.

E'Katarina Romana gazed longingly out the window at the wide expanse of stars. So many stars, so many planets, so many places she'd never been and would never get to... 

"It is not fair!" she yelled, emphasizing her exclamation with a stamp of her foot.

The stamp brought an immediate gathering of a dozen women to the window.

"Do you need anything, your highness?"  
"Is there a problem, your highness?"  
"Can I get you something, your highness?"  
"Isn't it time for proper young princesses to be in bed?"

E'Katarina decided against throwing a royal temper tantrum and shooed all of the attendants away. None of them understood.

"Princess E'Katarina?" One of the multitude of attendants had returned, and timidly approached her. "Excuse me, your highness, but your parents want to speak with you."

"Now?" The princess turned away from the window.

"Yes, now." But the voice wasn't the attendant's; it was the deep, booming voice of her father, the High King. Startled, E'Katarina jumped. Recovering her wits, she saw her mother walk gracefully into the room behind him. Both of them at once. She muttered a decidedly non-royal profanity under her breath.

E'Katarina waited for her father to speak and was surprised when he suddenly seemed to have nothing to say -- a rare occurrence. He nudged his wife to break the silence.

"E'Katarina," began the High Queen, her voice soft and controlled, "you have grown up to be such a lovely young lady. You are a princess in every sense of the word, and you are at the age now, when young princesses are betrothed to young princes..."

"What?" interrupted E'Katarina. Her father, speechless, and her mother covering for him? What next?

"We will come to the point." The King found his voice. He tried to ignore the glare his daughter was shooting at him. "You will marry Prince Ta'Ranin of the Second Family."

"No!" E'Katarina glared at her parents.

"But we though you were fond of Ta'Ranin." The High Queen, puzzled, looked at her daughter.

"I want to travel among the stars. I want to see other planets, other people, other ways of life." E'Katarina gazed into the empty air. 

"Have you forgotten your priorities? You are the eldest daughter of the High King and Queen, next in line for the throne." The Queen sighed.

"You will marry Prince Ta'Ranin and that is final," said her father in a severe tone. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, I understand!" E'Katarina stood her ground. "You want to trap me on this miserable little planet for the rest of my life, watching people bow and scrape to me while I decide things that do not matter anywhere but here! An infinite universe waits out there, full of beings and landscapes I can only imagine while I am stuck here at only 45 ejas of age! I am not a child anymore. I should have a say..."

The High King's face was becoming a violent shade of purple as E'Katarina paused in her rant. She realized, with a finality that turned her stomachs upside down, that they were never going to let her go. 

She would have to figure out some other way.


	2. Departure

The High King's shuttles lay in the darkness, guarded only by their security codes. They would prove to be poor guards.

A figure dressed in plain traveling clothes, swathed in a black cloak, paused at an access terminal by the bay where the ships were kept. A quick tap on the terminal provided her access through the security perimeter. Another pause at another terminal removed the codes "locking" the shuttles in place. She smirked at the ease of the whole procedure.

"Wait!" A voice called out in the darkness. 

E'Katarina turned, recognized the voice, and blew a sigh of relief. "Ta'Ranin! Keep your voice down!"

"I was afraid you'd try to do something like this." He whispered, gesturing to the shuttle pad. "Would it be so bad to stay with me?"

"Maybe someday you can forgive me." 

"I'll forgive you now. All that talk...you meant it. What if they figure out you're not human?"

"They will not," she said. "The differences are minute. I can fool the tricorders."

"You always were a genius at computers," he said, reaching into his pocket. "I want you to have this." He dropped a silver medallion into her hand, closing his hand briefly around hers.

"Your family's seal?" She turned the medallion over, running a finger along the delicate, intricate scriptwork. "You can't just give this to me, it should..."

"Just take it."

She nodded. "I have to go, before the guards find me."

"Just remember -- as unhappy as you were here, it's still your home. Nothing can ever change that." Ta'Ranin stood before her, his eyes troubled.

"Take care of yourself." She placed the medallion around her neck.

"I solemnly promise." He stood at mock attention and earned a stifled laugh.

"Get out of here." She flashed him a smile, swallowed hard, and returned to her task.

He began to walk away but turned back mid-stride, taking her hand in his as he dropped to one knee. E’Katarina closed her eyes as his lips brushed across her knuckles. 

“I’ll never stop waiting for you.”

Her voice caught in her throat; she whirled away and bounded onto the shuttle, leaving Ta’Ranin to plunge his fists into the wet ground in frustration and fear.

* * * * *

The next day the Royal Speaker for the Crown reported that Princess E'Katarina Romana had been abducted from her bedroom by terrorists plotting to overthrow the monarchy. The terrorists' pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears as several were summarily executed. The Princess was not expected to be seen alive again.


	3. Chapter 3

Kathy Roman looked down at her datapad and then up at the shiny black numbers adjacent to the door.

"Computer, this is First-Year Cadet Katharine Roman." She practiced saying it in her head continually. "I am Kathy Roman." It was getting easier, though she was already missing the melody of her real name. She should have chosen a more musical human name - there were several types and ethnicities to choose from, after all - but her first instinct was to choose something fairly close to E'Katarina. Too late to change that now, not after all of the clever work she had done to falsify records demonstrating her - Kathy's - existence.

The computer needed only a nanosecond to confirm that the voice indeed belonged to First-Year Cadet Katharine Roman. "Identification confirmed." The door quietly whooshed open.

She looked around her new Starfleet Academy dorm room. A set of bunk beds were pushed up against the wall to her right; a door in front of them led to the ‘fresher. Two desks sat on the wall across from the bunks; a breeze wafted in through an open window opposite to the door. The walls were a muted gray, devoid of art work or decoration, the desks a slick black mirrored by the black computer screens above them. Wrinkling her nose, Kathy stepped into the ‘fresher. It was barely large enough to accommodate one humanoid.

Not exactly palatial accommodations.

Setting down her small suitcase, she resolutely put the thought out of her head and began to unpack. She had made her choice, though giving up the benefits of royalty had been more glamorous to imagine than to live. Satisfied after her few possessions were neatly filed and stacked away, she sat down on the lower bunk, closed her eyes, and tried to wish away some of the tension of the last few days.

A frantic pounding on the door interrupted her meditation.

"C'mon you stupid computer, open the door or I'll rewire you into a garbage disposal!"

"Identification is not confirmed. Please stand by."

"I'll give you a stand by, you imbecilic hunk of over-processed tin!"

Kathy listened to a sequence of finger taps, keypad beeps, and more pounding.

The doors whooshed open, and the pounder, losing her surface to pound on, fell into the room and flat on her face.

"Identification confirmed."

"Obsolete piece of horta excrement!"

The young woman pushed herself to her knees, sweeping several long strands of sandy hair out of her pale, human face. Her uniform was askew and wrinkled. Muttering something about "stupid blasted security protocols," she looked up at Kathy.

"Hi! I'm Jessie Kienstracker."

"Kathy Roman."

They stared at each other for moment; she got the distinct sense that Jessie was waiting for her to say more.

"I took the bottom bunk," she added, worrying after she said it if her tone was too bossy, too royal. "If that is agreeable to you," she added.

"Stellar! Top bunk suits me fine." Jessie dumped her belongings on the floor and looked around. “Larger than I thought it’d be. Gonna have to rip out that damn computer's guts, though. Where ya from? I'm from Deep Space 3. My dad's the admiral there. But before you go thinking I'm a 'fleet brat, you should know that it took me two tries to get in."

Jessie paused to take a breath and tossed a few articles of clothing onto the top bunk.

"Anyway, I hope we can be friends. My dad's still connected with his old roommate from here. It's brilliant to be back on Earth. Do you like Indian food? I have a friend in Mumbai..."

Kathy's headache intensified as her new roommate's chattering continued. Making friends would be risky, especially a with loudmouth like this human female. Gods forbid she ever figured out Kathy's ruse; she'd probably blab it to the first sentient being she encountered afterward. She stood up from her bunk and headed for the door.

"We will be late for Orientation." And First-Year Cadet Katharine Roman walked right past her new roommate and out the door. Hopefully it wasn't too soon to put in a roommate transfer request. Maybe she could get a nice, quiet Vulcan.


	4. Strength & Conditioning

“Welcome, gentlebeings, to Academy's Strength and Conditioning class. It is every officer’s duty to maintain a healthy physique at all times.”

Kathy watched her roommate shift her weight from leg to leg.

“We will begin with a basic assessment. Remember, our expectations are merely that you demonstrate your current level of physical fitness. We will work with you to achieve the Academy’s fitness requirements, but some may need to work harder than others.”

Kathy, dressed in purple shorts and a purple t-shirt, like all of the other humanoids present, eyed Jessie’s toned physique with envy, her face slipping into a panicked expression.

"Are you okay?” whispered Jessie.

“I’ve never done anything athletic before." Kathy grimaced.

The instructor was pacing toward them; the two girls immediately stood up straight.

“We’ll divide into groups by species, and then for the species here in large numbers, like humans, we’ll further subdivide you by ability level after this first series of tests.”

Kathy's group started with a "short, easy run." Somehow she plodded forward, one foot in front of the other. She stumbled to the ground at the end, sharp piercing stabs of breath catching at her sides. Her hair was matted with sweat, a novel sensation that she did not enjoy in the least. Her calves felt like they were on fire. She subsequently proceeded to fall off the climbing rope only a meter off the ground, and she could not get her chin over the pull-up bar.

“What’s your name, Cadet?”

“Cadet Roman, sir!” Her breath was coming in ragged gasps.

The instructor leaned over and spoke softly in her ear. “Worst I’ve seen in several classes, Roman. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Tears sprung to her eyes. No one had ever dared suggest to her she was less than perfect at anything before. She was not used to thinking of herself as average, let alone below average. Perhaps this idea to run away to Starfleet had been ill-considered.

Jessie trotted over to her, appearing no worse than her usual disheveled baseline despite enduring the same physical tests. Kathy swiped away the moisture from her eyes and assumed her best royal face of indifference.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Please stop asking me that all of the time.”

“Sorry." Jessie looked a bit taken aback.

Kathy forced herself to swallow at least some of her pride. “No, I am the one who should apologize. You were merely offering me kindness.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jessie shrugged.

“Truth is,” panted Kathy, still a bit out of breath, “I do not seem to be very good at this.”

“Is there a game or sport you like to play?” asked Jessie.

Kathy looked thoughtful, as her breathing normalized. “Card games are fun.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Athletic games. Don’t they do those...wherever you're from?”

"You grew up with Starfleet officers for parents," responded Kathy, dodging the question. "I had no idea that athletic prowess was required for a career in Starfleet.”

“You don’t have to run a marathon or be a jai alai star. You so can do it – anybody can! It’ll just take some practice – we gotta build up your conditioning, that’s all. I’d be happy to help.”

“Really?” Kathy struggled to believe that this boisterous stranger would help her.

Jessie smiled. “You bet! I love this stuff!”

Twenty minutes later, Kathy found herself trying to keep up with Jessie around the track.

“I am getting short of breath now.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kinda what’s supposed to happen when you run.”

“I do not...” _huff, huff_ “understand” _huff, huff_ “why this is supposed to be” _huff_ “fun.”

“Just gotta add a football or a lacrosse stick - then it's fun. I’m gonna sprint ahead a hundred meters or so. Turn on everything you’ve got to catch up with me, okay?”

Kathy nodded, unwilling to expend the energy to speak. She watched Jessie cruise ahead on the path and stop under a large deciduous tree. Seeing her roommate so far ahead, looking almost bored, spurred an unfamiliar competitive spark from deep within her. She grit her teeth and compelled her legs to move faster...and faster...

Jessie started shouting encouragements.

“That’s it, Kathy! Go! Go, Kat, go! Kat! Kat! Kat!”

Kathy collapsed at Jessie’s feet.

“Blue skies, that was awesome! Are you okay?”

“Water, water, water,” repeated Kathy in a frenzied litany.

“We’re going to have to head back to our room. Sorry,” offered Jessie as she leaned over, hooked her arm under one of Kathy’s, and dragged her upright.

“I did it -- I can do it,” she said.

“Damn straight you can.”

Kathy let Jessie support her back to their dorm room; miraculously, Jessie stayed silent the entire way. She pulled out Kathy's desk chair after they entered their room and called up a cold glass of water from the replicator.

“Don’t gulp. You’ll make yourself sick.”

Kathy, contently collapsed in her chair, stopped mid-gulp and focused on taking slow, dignified sips.

“You know something, Roman? You’re all right.” Jessie sat down next to her.

Kathy looked at her for a moment before turning away to tap on her computer console.

Jessie stood up and went into the ‘fresher. “Fine...ignore me as usual...”

"I am not ignoring you. I am rescinding my roommate transfer request.”

“You were...what?" Jessie’s head peeked out of the ‘fresher. "Oh," she added, and Kathy watched her face darken, and then lighten, as understanding sunk in.

“You know something, Kienstracker? You're all right.” Her voice matched the cadence of Jessie’s statement almost perfectly.

Jessie threw her head back and laughed loudly, the sound echoing in their tiny room.


End file.
